S. Awan is a failed journalist, a student of history, a lover of music, film, culture, and an enthusiast of the the controversial and the weird.
Also a musician, and part-time freelance, involuntary human being. Also occasionally lives on the moon. Also is a ghost. And a cigarette butt that hasn't been put out properly; so, you know, there's still, like, smoke coming out of it and stuff...

Am I the only one who can’t quite work out what happened last weekend in Syria or what it’s all supposed to mean?

That is, I can’t work out what the US-UK-France Triumvirate (the same Triumvirate that led the intervention against Gaddafi in Libya) was trying to do when it decided to carry out strikes against alleged chemical weapons locations in Syria.

It’s all been a bit confused. Which is one reason I haven’t commented on any of it until now. The other reason is that the night of the military action (Friday 13th) was the day I was burying my grandfather: and so I had no interest in writing anything or keeping track of events at that time.

But it also allowed me to delay or withhold opinion and just keep an unbiased eye on the news for a few days to see how things unfolded.

The ‘age of stupid’ is the only term I can think of for framing this ongoing nonsense.

President Trump and members of his administration have taken the questionable approach of stating outright that the US will respond severely if the Syrian government carries out another chemical attack on civilians.

More than that, it is insisting that Damascus is planning said attack and claims to have proof of this. (more…)

I posted up an old video of Asma al-Assad last week, because I thought her sentiments in the recording really resonated with what has been going on in Syria and the Middle East in recent years.

I didn’t know, however, that a couple of days later the UK newspapers would feature sudden articles calling for the British-born Syrian First Lady to be punished for her marriage to Syria’s President and her contradictions of the Western narratives on the Syrian crisis.

The manner in which most of the newspapers appear to have covered this story presents an incredibly one-sided picture, some even asking whether Asma al-Assad should be considered a ‘War Criminal’. Some of this is almost comically misguided in terms of the language used; but there is a more serious, worrying aspect to this story, which I will come to at the end. (more…)

I came across this old footage of Syria’s First Lady, Asma al-Assad, and found the content of her talk here striking: and also somewhat poignant, given when it was made and what has happened since.

Given the current situation and escalating tensions, I thought this was well worth sharing. In this talk, from way back in 2008, London-born Asma al-Assad (or ‘Emma’ from Acton) is addressing an international charity and talking about Syria in particular and the Middle East in general and her experiences.

In doing so, she touches on the popular international misconceptions about the region, as well as refugees, and the right of the Syrian people to live in peace and with dignity. (more…)

Unsurprisingly, more or less every image of the sarin attack victims being circulated in international media seems to have involved the infamous White Helmets or bears their logo.

However many Nobel Peace Prizes they might get nominated for or however many Oscars they win, the White Helmets (funded by the US, UK and France) has already been extensively discredited and is a fake media/false-flag operation in the form of a Hollywood-ised NGO and embedded with Al-Qaeda and other jihadists in Syria (see here, or go straight to Vanessa Beeley’s work).

It should be enough that the White Helmets have previously been caught with Al-Nusra (Al-Qaeda) and other extremist militias and have also been caught on numerous occasions faking videos or images to provoke Western powers into attacking the Syrian government: but the fact that CNN and various media outlets, along with various Western officials, have once again based their entire condemnation of the Assad government solely on ‘evidence’ provided by the White Helmets and foreign-backed rebels in Idlib is both highly suspect and business as usual. (more…)

The entirety of international corporate media seems to have completely forgotten – or deliberately omitted – the fact that the Syrian government had officially completed the removal of its last remaining chemical weapons stockpile as of June 23rd 2014.

This was apparently confirmed by the United Nations Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, as well as reported by most media outlets at the time (but, strangely, not referred to anymore by the same outlets insisting Assad carried out this latest attack).

In fact, the MSM and government reality-bypassers keep referring to the 2013 Ghoutta attack as “the last time Assad gassed civilians” – when, in fact, that 2013 attack was investigated by the UN and the conclusion was that the rebels had carried out the attack, making Obama’s original ‘Red Line’ position meaningless. (more…)

Aaaaaannd… here we are again.

Hope you enjoyed the brief break from the Neo-Con/regime-change program: but we’re back to the regularly scheduled program. Chemical attack in Syria against civilians. Assad must go. A line has been crossed. Let loose the dogs of war. Etc.

Suddenly, after all the false hopes of a changing foreign policy that would accompany the Trump administration’s arrival, President Trump himself now says he has changed his mind (literally) about Bashar Assad.

I’m not particularly surprised by all of this sleight-of-hand and I always have the view that pre-existing, longstanding foreign policy agendas are designed not to be undermined by incoming officials or pesky changes in administration. (more…)

It is difficult to look at the situation in Aleppo and not see it in a broader context. Not only of Syria, but of Libya, the past several years, and of the entire region. And of international affairs in general.

We probably shouldn’t; we should probably view different situations entirely in their own light. But I can’t help but look at Aleppo – both the fall of Aleppo to rebel militias and foreign-backed mercenaries and now the liberation or reclamation of Aleppo by Syrian government forces – and see it as a point on a timeline that goes all the way back to Benghazi, Tripoli, Sirte and elsewhere. (more…)

Picking up from yesterday‘s reports of chemical attacks in Syria, we of course have to be very careful when watching the media/propaganda war concerning what is happening in Aleppo and in Syria in general. (more…)

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